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cO 


SEX-DENOTING NOUNS IN AMERICAN 

LANGUAGES. 


BY 

/ 

ALBERT S. GATSCHET, 

* * 

OF THE U. S. BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY, WASHINGTON. 



1889. 


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III. — Sex-denoting Nouns in American Languages. 

t 

By ALBERT S. GATSCHET, 

OF THE U. S. BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY, WASHINGTON, D. C. 

The most cursory consideration of the things in nature teaches us 
the fact, that there are living and lifeless objects in the world around 
us, that is, beings which spontaneously show signs of inward life, and 
objects deprived of the signs of life or appearing to be so. To reach 
such a degree of mental apperception our race had to pass through 
a long period of training and experience, and among rude and prim¬ 
itive nations the human mind has not reached this stage of logical 
perfection; much less can this be said of the intelligence of the 
primordial man of many thousand years ago. The primordial man 
easily confounded action , motion , variation , and cha?ige with life , this 
being a natural consequence of the animism which then pervaded all 
human understanding. Man at that remote period also confounded 
cause and effect with sequence in time, and both errors were the 
fruitful agencies which produced that wonderful maze of religious 
ideas, myths, and superstitions which are now being published in the 
literature of folk-lore. Objects like the wind, lightning, dew, or fog 
could then be regarded as animate as well as pearls, precious stones, 
and flowers, although we would now laugh at the idea that there is 
life in them. But primeval ideas like these still survive in the gender 
of some languages, part of which are spoken by the most cultured 
nations. 

But besides the above another distinction was received into the 
noun and other parts of speech. Man and the higher animals, as 
quadrupeds and birds, were known to be divided in two sexes, and an 
intimation of these was expressed in the grammatic forms of some 
languages. In the 1 Aryan languages the majority of the lower animals 
and plants were also given a grammatic sex, but most other objects 
of nature were relegated into what is now called the neuter gender. 
In other languages, mainly of the agglutinative type, these were rele¬ 
gated into a large class of “ inanimates.” The large majority of all 
languages which are distinguishing gender in the noun, know of two 
genders only, and a number of tongues in all parts of the world know 


i6o 


Albert S. Gatschet , 


[1889. 


nothing of any gender- or sex-distinction whatever , 1 some of these, 
as Neopersian, Lettish and English, having lost them in course of 
time. 

The personal pronoun is that part of speech in which the mascu¬ 
line sex is at first distinguished from the feminine by separate words 
or grammatic signs. From the personal pronoun this distinction 
gradually invades the possessive, reflective, demonstrative, interroga¬ 
tive and relative pronoun. Sex may be made distinct in the pronoun 
of one, but not of another dialect of the same linguistic family, a fact 
which I have observed in the Kalapuya family of Northwestern 
Oregon. Sex-distinction also exists in the third persons of the pro¬ 
nouns in some Iroquois dialects, but not in the Cherokee language, 
which is related to them. In Iroquois dialects the distinction between 
he and she extends to persons only, not to any of the animals. In 
the Timucua, once spoken in the Floridian peninsula, o, oqe is he , 
ya she ; but sex does not appear to be marked in any other manner 
in this language, which is so extremely rich in pronominal and verbal 
forms. 

From the personal and possessive pronoun sex-distinction passes 
into the verb , which in agglutinative languages is nothing but a modi¬ 
fied noun. In the verb sex-distinction is less frequent than in the 
pronoun. Of American languages some Iroquois dialects have it in 
the third persons of the singular, dual and plural of the pronoun only ; 
in the eastern hemisphere the languages which present this feature 
most conspicuously are those of the Semitic stock. 

Distinction of sex in the noun . 

The noun proper or substantive and the adjective are the parts of 
speech in which sex-denoting affixes are most unfrequently met with. 
The majority of all tongues will resort to separate terms to indicate 
sex in human beings and animals, and place them in apposition to 
the noun either before or after it. In Maya dialects these sex-appo- 
sites have been ground down so as to represent mere prefixes; ah- 
designates the male, but in fact means proprietor, possessor; ish-, sh- 
represents the female sex, and originally referred to the reproduction 
of the species. Thus in the Maya of Yucatan mehen is son , ish- 
mehen daughter; Ah-Pech man called Bech , Ish-Pech woman called 
Pech. To designate the sex of animals, this language uses other 

1 To avoid misapprehension, I call henceforth gender the categories of the 
animate and inanimate, sex those of the masculine and feminine. 


Vol. xx.] Sex-denoting Nouns in American Languages. 161 

terms : shibil-coh male puma, shibil signifying male. The Quiche 
language, closely related to Maya, furnishes such examples as : Tzi- 
quin, nom. pr. masc. “Bird” — Sh-Tziquin, name of his wife; zu 
flute , ah-zu musician ; achih-mun male slave, ishok-mun female slave, 
achih meaning male and ishok woman. 

But this is agglutination only; affixes like these are not real, insep¬ 
arable grammatic marks to designate sex, but only terms used in 
forming compound nouns, just as we say she-fox for vixen. However, 
we find in several not sex-denoting American languages instances of 
metaphoric appellations of inanimate things referring to sexual dis¬ 
tinction. They show how deeply engrafted in the human mind is the 
tendency towards animism. Thus the Caddo name for Mississippi 
river is Bahat sassin Mother of rivers, for sassin means mother as 
well as wife, and the name shows that that river is here symbolized 
as the “ receiver of many rivers.” In the Maskoki languages thumb 
is “ mother of fingers ” ; in Creek ingi itchki, in Chikasa ilbak-ishke, 
in Hitchiti ilb-iki, the literal rendering of all these terms being “of 
one’s fingers their mother.” 

Sex-denoting affixes. 

What seems to be a genuine sex-denoting affix to the noun appears 
in one of the South-American linguistic families of the northern part 
of that continent. This stock is commonly designated as Carib , but 
since this name has been used in an exceedingly vague and indistinct 
manner, it is preferable to call the dialects in which sex-denoting 
affixes have been studied, by their special names. 

Copying from Fr. Muller, Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, II, 
p. 324, the dialects in which this feature is observed are the Arowak 
and the Goajira, sex being indicated in adjectives and participles as 
well as in substantives. In Arowak we have : 
boy basabanti; girl basabantu. 
little boy basabanti-kan ; little girl basabantu-kan. 
a good man usati; a good woman iisatu. 
loving (man) kansiti; loving (woman) kansitu. 
dying (man) ahuduti; dying (woman) ahudutu. 
child (male) elonti; child (female) elontu. 

In the Goajira language, spoken north of the Gulf of Maracaibo, 
the -i of the rpasculine answers to a feminine in -e, as follows : 
merchant oikari; fern, oikare. 
fisherman apushaxori; fem. apusha^ore. 


62 


Albert S. Gatschet , 


[1889. 


good anashi; fem. anase. 

dead autushi;. fem. autuse. 

little morsashi; fem. morsase. 

sorry, trist, maxuaintshi; fem. maxuainre. 

The language of the Kalinago or Caribs of the West Indies or 
Antillian islands is surviving upon a few islands only; it is related to 
both dialects above mentioned, and shows the same sex-denoting 
suffixes as observed in Arowak (Muller, ibid. p. 339) : 
a beautiful man iropo n ti; a beautiful woman irupatu. 
beloved (man) ki n shi n ti; beloved (woman) ki n shi n tu. 
murderer aparuti; murderess aparutu. 

I do not have the works of Father Breton before me, who is the 
chief authority upon this insular language; but from the extracts in 
L. Adam, Examen Grammatical , p. 7 (1878), it appears that the 
personal and the possessive pronouns also differed according to the 
sex of the one speaking in the third person: l-iem he does , t-iem 
she does; 1 -aku his eye , t-aku her eye . Moreover, the females among 
themselves spoke another language than the men, and though both 
languages were called Caribbean , Fr. Muller regards them as radi¬ 
cally distinct from each other. 1 

The Taensa people, the existence of which is recorded in the 
annals from 1680 to 1812, lived between Vicksburg and-Natchez 
City on the west side of the Mississippi river, near the Tonikas, and 
about 1714 removed to Mobile Bay. The grammar, vocabulary and 
poetic collection of the Taensa language, which was published in 
» Paris in 1882, has been attacked in regard to its authenticity, and 
since the arguments brought forward against it have not convinced 
many scientists, 2 I shall make mention of the curious system of sex- 
distinction which the grammar contains. This distinction occurs in 
the pronouns and in the substantive. The pronouns with sex-forms are 
thou wi, fem. wia; he su, she sua; ye wig, fem. wiag; they sug, fem. 
suag. The interrogative pronoun wekmar, fem. wekmara who ? the 
emphatic and expletive forms of the personal pronoun all bear the 
marks of sex-distinction. When a masculine form corresponds to a 
feminine substantive, the ending of the latter is -a; and this in some 
instances passes over into the adjective when this is used attributively. 

1 Cf. also Ober, Fred. A., Camps in the Caribbees. Boston, 1880, pp. 100-103. 

2 Dr. D. G. Brinton, in American Antiquarian , 1885, pp. 108-113; 275, 276; 
A. S. Gatschet, in Revue de Linguistique of Paris, 1888, pp. 199-208, and several 
articles written by Lucien Adam and Julien Vinson. 


Vol. xx.] Sex-denoting Nouns in American Languages. 163 

The terminals -ao, -a-u indicate inanimate things, but nouns in -ao, 
-a-u are regarded as of the feminine sex. 

Tonika. 

The only sex-denoting language which I have had the opportunity 
to study on the spot is the Tonika or Ttinixka of Eastern Louisiana, 
discovered by me in the autumn of 1886. It proved to be a language 
heretofore unknown to science, and by its strange peculiarities de¬ 
serves to be carefully studied and compared with other languages, 
especially with those spoken in its nearest vicinity: the Na’htchi, 
Shetimasha, Atakapa and the sundry dialects of the wide-stretching 
Maskdki family. 

In the pronoun, verb and noun this southern tongue distinguishes 
two sexes, the masculine and feminine; inanimate things belong 
either to one or the other of the two, and abstract nouns are chiefly 
or exclusively of the feminine class. If an inanimate order ever 
existed, it has been merged into the above two, as in the modern 
Romance languages the neuter has merged into the masculine. 

In the noun the male sex is made distinct in the singular by the 
prefix uk- (u-), or by the suffix -ku (-k u , -xku, -xk, -k) ; in the plural 
by the prefix sik-, sig-, or by the suffixed pronoun sa ,n , sa'ma, h£ 
sama. -The female sex has a distinguishing mark in the prefix tik- 
(ti’h-, tig-, ti-, t-) or in the suffix -ktchi (-xtchi, -xtch, -ktch, -kts, 
-’htchi, -tch, -ts) in the singular number, while in the plural it has 
sin, si n , si, he sin, he sinma, placed either before or after the noun to 
which they belong. 

All these affixes are either pronouns or of pronominal origin. 
They are frequently omitted where we expect to find them, and the 
masculine affixes much more so than those of the opposite sex. 

A partial list of Pronouns is as follows: 

h£ku, h£k u this one , this ; fern, hektchi, h£’htch; pi. h£ sa n ; h£ sin. 

h£ku and hektchi may also refer to inanimate things. 

Personal pronoun: 

1 sg. ima I; emphatic i'mata 11 myself. 

2 sg. ma thou (masc.) ha/ma (fern.) ; emphatic mata n , ha'mata”. 

3 sg. uwi he, ti’htchi she ; emphatic uwita", ti’htchita". 


164 


Albert S. Gatschet, 


[1889. 


1 pi. inima we; emphatic inimata 11 ourselves. 

2 pi. winima ye (masc.), hinima (fem.); emphatic winimata”, 
hinimata". 

3 pi. sa' n ma, sa ,n they (masc.), sinima, sP (fem.) ; emphatic 
sa' D mata n , fem. sinimata 11 . 

Possessive pronoun: 

luk tongue, ta hik the tongue, a tongue, tongue. 

1 sg. iluk my tongue. 

2 sg. wiluk thy tongue, fem. hiluk. 

3 sg. uluk his tongue, fem. tiluk her tongue. 

1 pi. i ,n luk our tongues. 

2 pi. wi ,n luk your tongues , fem. hi ,n luk. 

3 pi. siluk their tongues, fem. si ,n luk. 

The word ri house, provided with possessive prefixes, runs as 
follows : 

1 sg. igri my house ; 2 sg. wigri, f. higri; 3 sg. ugri, f. tigri. 

1 pi. iheri our house ; 2 pi. wiheri, f. hiheri; 3 pi. sigri, f. si’hri. 
When ri house, which is of the feminine gender, stands in the 
plural, it becomes ri-sin houses, lit. “ house-these ” or “ house-they,” 
and the u conjugation ” proceeds as follows : 

1 sg. igrisin or ta ri’htinsin my houses. 

2 sg. wigrisin thy houses, fem. higrisin. 

3 sg. ugrisin his houses, tigrisin her houses. 

1 pi. iherisin our houses. 

2 pi. wi’hrisin your houses, fem. hi’herisin. 

3 pi. sigrisin their houses, fem. si’hrisin; or ta n’tchi sin si’hri, 
lit. “ the-women-their-houses.” 

In following up a portion of the personal inflection of the verb, 
similar pronominal elements are found to occur. 

Present tense of sagu to eat, declarative form ; 

1 sg. sagukani I am eating. 

2 sg. saguki; fem. saguka. 

3 sg. sagukuna, saguku; fem. sagukati. 
indef. sagfikiti somebody is eating. 

1 du. sagina 11 we two are eating. 

2 du. saguwina"; fem. saguhina". 

3 du. sagu-una n ; fem. sagusina 11 . 


Vol. xx.] Sex-denoting Nouns in American Languages. 165 

1 pi. sdgiti" and sdgiti we are eating. 

2 pi. saguvviti; fem. saguhiti. 

3 pi. sagukiti; fem. sagusiti. 

Although there is a dual in the verb, I have been unable to obtain 
a dual for the pronoun and substantive differing from the plural. 

Now let us see how these different signs of sex are applied in 
the Tonika sentence. Let us consider them separately, beginning 
with the : 


Masculine. 

kua tu^k u 6shka tadshara the claws of a little bird; kud being 
masc., tu^ku or tu^k u , tu^k little , is of the same sex. 

h£ku na^k like this man , or like this thing. 

ikont£ku ltipui w£ran a-d^kinta my father-he (ikont£-ku) died,\ 
while I was hunting. 

kdri harl'a ta ri^ku (or ta^ku, abbr.) ? how tall is this tree ? 

tayani-shi-k u ri^ti mishti ta sa-tek u ukperi the buffalo is stronger 
than the horse; lit. “ cattle-male-he strong more the horse-he him 
surpasses ” : uk- is the masc. object-particle of the singular, referring 
here to the horse. 

t6ni sik’hayi hiha-i^ta lup h6t’ 6nta The old people in this village 
are all dead; lit. “ people those-old in-there dead all are ”; sik- 
being an instance of the masculine plural. 


Feminine. 

6ka niixtchi tti little girl; lit. “ child-YVoman-small ”; tti little need 
not take the fem. ending (tu’htchi) here, for the sex is already pointed 
at by nuxtchi. 

ta^kuri h£ktch im^’htini this fence is mine (yky\i\in fence). 
td yiinka’htch (or ta yunka) titik ma-it6ru a'ra a rope is crossing 
the creek ; lit. “ the rope creek across is lying ” ; if yunka was masc., 
the verb would be u'ra. 

ra-axkini l'gatchik lupiti’htch I grew up when my mother was dead. 
igatchiktch ti’htch, B£luksi ntixtchi, ikna^sha/ki my mother , a Beluxi 
woman , brought me (here). In these two examples ti’htch is added 
reverentially to the term my mother (fgatchi). 

ta tiraktch irukati huriwi the cloth (or sheet) floats in the wind; 
lit. “ the-she-cloth-she floats-she wind-in,” ira cloth being preceded 
and followed by feminine affixes. 


Albert S. Gatscket, 


[1889. 


166 


ta ri x k£ku (or tarkeku, ta x kuk) haria tari’tch atdpara the tree is 
as tall as the house;' lit. “ the tree tall the house-she equals.” 

ta x kuk haria, tigri ka/ha the tree is lower than the house ; lit. “ the 
tree tall, she-house is-not.” 

ta x tchiksh ti’hkorak(i) full moon; lit. “luminary she-round.” 
la-u ta x tchiksh rikeha, a x shukun ta x tchiksh tikamishti the moon h 
smaller than the sun; lit. “ night-luminary great-not, day-luminary 
her surpasses.” 

ta-ushi rdmana mishtik, ta makak tikp£ri water is heavier than oil ; 
lit. “water (for ta wi’hshi) heavy more, the oil her surpasses.” 

ta wishana ma x kina mishti h6tu si n p£ri this lake is deeper than all 
others; lit. “the lake deep more all them (fern.) surpasses.” 

yakanika x tcha ki, laho 11 tuk yakanika x tcha if I come , I come early. 
Laho n tuk “ small morning” gives no indication of the feminine gender 
of lahon, lahoni. 

ta h£ri’htchi tchuima he seizes the canoe. 
taru h£sin ra (or rata) these nuts are hard. 
ta niriwa'ka sin the cemeteries. 

h6 sin h6tu tiksa tchdhaki she led all these dogs ; tiksa female dog r 
h£ sin these (fem. pi.), h6tu all. 

The demonstrative particle ta preceding many of the nouns can 
best be understood when we regard it as an article corresponding in 
most cases to our definite article the , and indicative of the singular 
and plural number of both sexes. 

These examples plainly show that there is a real sex-distinction in 
this language for animate beings as well as for inanimate things; that 
the pronoun ku, k u is always placed after its noun, adjective, or pro¬ 
noun to designate the masculine gender; that the more frequent 
ti’h-, ti-, t- is placed before it to designate the feminine, but when it 
appears in the shape of ti’htch, -’htch, -ksh, -’tch is suffixed to it; 
that in many instances the signs of either class are omitted altogether. 

The point which we have to examine next is, what objects or cate¬ 
gories of objects are assigned to the one or the other sex. For we 
find that the attribution of some sex to inanimate things must have 
started from the same mental activity which has assigned to the sun 
a male sex in the classic and a female in the Germanic languages, and 
to the moon just the reverse, although there is nothing male or female 
to be perceived in either of the two celestial bodies. It was the 
same energy of the mind which caused primitive men to produce 
myths by personifying the inanimate objects of nature observed 


Vol. xx.] Sex-denoting Nouns in American Languages . 167 

around them. The Tonika language is the more remarkable on this 
account, because it is the only language heretofore discovered in 
America which divides all objects of creation into two great sex- 
categories. 

Of the adjectives the large majority appear to have a simple form, 
from which the masculine is derived by suffixing -ku, - x ku, -k u , the 
feminine by appending one of the aforementioned affixes. The 
adjective ni’hsara young forms neither of the two, as the sex is 
expressed by the noun accompanying this adjective or implied in 
it: 6ne ni’hsara boy, nu^tchi ni’hsara girl; lit. “ man young,” “ woman 
young.” 

We have the following instances : 


ta' n great, large masc. 

ta/ku, ta'gu 

fern. ta"htchi 

tu small, little 

tu^ku, tfi^k 

tu^kush 

k6ra n round 

kdraku 

kdraktch 

m£li black 

m£liku 

mdliktchi 

mili red 

miliku 

miliktchi 

r6wa white 

rdwaku 

rdwaktchi 

td^kir smutty, dirty 

ta^kirku 

taxkiri’htch 

maka u /cz/ 

maka^ku 

maka’htchi 

ri^'sa spotted, dotted 

rix'saku 

rix'satch 


The sex of the substantive is not by any means always expressed 
in the adjective accompanying it, and this appears to be dictated 
either by the run of the sentence or be a matter of pure convenience. 
Thus we have tashkara^poni (fern.) r6wa white stocking , though t. is 
feminine; ti^shuma maka 11 or t. maka’htchi fat meat; ti^shuma 
s£pi lean ?neat ', instead of s^pi’htch. Especially the sign of the mas¬ 
culine is frequently omitted. 

Of the Terms of relationship , which correspond to each other in 
both sexes, many appear in this language with the sexual affixes 
appended, and are always connected with their possessive prefixes 
my, his, her, just like the parts of the human and animal body : 
£’hkutuhuk my son, d’hkutuhuktch(i) my daughter. 

^kutu walik my step-son, d^kutu wdliktch my step-daughter. 
i^tchaku my grandfather, i^tchaktch my grandmother. 

£tuku mashiku my father-in-law, £tuku mashi’htchi my mother-in- 
law. Thus in the formation of the degrees of relationship we per¬ 
ceive a close analogy with the sex-distinction in adjectives. 


168 


Albert S. Gatschet, 


Terms designating male perso?is, their occupations, employments, 
generally show no affix designating sex, or if they do, it is -ku, -k u . 
Terms descriptive of women, their occupations, etc., have either no 
affix, or ti’h-, -’htchi or some other of the above-mentioned feminine 
affixes. 

Quadrupeds and birds (kua) are of the masculine gender, unless 
the female sex is pointed out by a noun standing appositively. There 
is no word in the language corresponding exactly to our term 
animal, unless it should be contained in sa n , which now means dog; 
sa ta rn ho 7 -se would then be “ large animal.” Examples: yanish 
cattle, yanish ka^shi buffalo, pa'ha sa n wolf, tchula fox, ya, i-a deer, 
yata n elk, lit. “ large deer,” nu^ki beaver, rushta 11 rabbit, rushta 11 ta' n 
sheep, lit. “ large rabbit,” iyushala opossum and woodrat, kiwa weasel, 
iyuta hog, minu cat, hi^ku mouse; kua tu bird (lit. “small bird”), kua 
tu and tu^ku humming-bird, kha mili cardinal, dla, a'la buzzard, ye’hta 
ta n turkey, shimi pigeon ; but a'^ka crow is represented to be a femi¬ 
nine. 

The lower animals, as amphibians, reptiles, fish, insects and mol- 
lusks, appear to be considered as of the masculine gender: kd^ku 
turtle, kd’hsuki crab , na-ara n snake, na'ra 11 ta ,ri rattlesnake, viz. “ snake 
large,” nini fish, a'ya fly, i-unari salmon, dma^ka alligator, suta^shu 
grasshopper, shiri^ka ant, lupiran chamaeleon, nami louse, shila pa'^ka 
bedbug, lit. “ fat beast,” ke bee, ke mirka, mi^'ka wasp, ke wista honey, 
takirka mollusk, u^shik shell. The generic term for all the smaller 
animals is shila or shila tu, which the French Creoles call “le petit 
bdtail,” and is of the male sex. The term for frog, udshe^ka, is 
said to be feminine. 

Plants, trees, bushes and weeds are of the masculine sex also, 
and ri^ku tree and wood is masc. as well. The term for pla?it, tapa 
and tapaktch, is fern, and means “ what grows” or “is planted”; 
tapakani I plant. Examples of plants, all masculine, are as follows : 
riyku sanu pacan-tree, and sanu pacan-nut, u’hshpa white oak, ri^ku 
kiru peach-tree, rayi mulberry-tree , yugmoxku herb, grass, weed; era, 
ra tobacco, yita babate, sweet potato , shulik 6taka melon, shu^ka 
pumpkin. 

Of rocks, stones and mmerals the following are masculine : shi^ka 
stone, rock, flint-stone; haxtchu salt, laxspi, la’spi metal, iron, naxta 
bluff on a river, etc. 

The celestial bodies and the divisions of time are considered femi¬ 
nine by these Indians, as is also haliktch, abbrev. hali, hal eai'th, and 


Vol. xx.] Sex-denoting Nouns in American Languages. 169 

its derivatives, perhaps because the personified Earth is regarded as 
the mother of all beings. 

We mention the following instances: tdxtchiksh, abbr. ta^tchi 
“luminary” and sun; a^shukun t. sun, lit. “day-luminary”; ld-u t. 
moon, lit. “night-luminary”; td^tchi tipula star; ldhoni morning, 
te’hkalug^ki noon, tohdnagi afternoon, la-aki, la'ki evening, tihika 
summer and year; tihika tti spring, lit. “ little summer ” ; .ta^saba 
winter, td^saba tu autumn, lit. “ little winter ”; rtiina heat, yupa^ta 
the cold, alutapa 11 harvest also belong to the feminine order. Among 
the derivatives and compounds of hali earth we have : halupish 
mud, hali-sdman brick, lit. “ earth baked ” ; hald’hta sole. But the 
term hal-ukini village, district, lit. “ placed upon the earth,” is 
masculine. 

The points of the compass are derivatives of verbs or nouns, and all 
of the feminine sex : taxsapash north, lit. “ cold ” ; taxtchi pika- 
tish east, tihikash south, ldkatish west, lit. “loss (of the sun).” 

Some other objects of nature are of the feminine order also : 
wi’hshi water, liquid becomes ta-ush(i) when the article ta is placed 
before it: ta-ush mili river, lit. “ red water ” ; hdxpushi ashes, ontd- 
tish milk, t6ra ice, toratini hoarfrost, ydxku vegetable poison , shixtika 
venom, tdlia and tdlia’htch shadoiv and soul, also reflection on the 
water. The term yi pain, invisible sickness is feminine, and hence all 
names of diseases are of the same gender: ini yi toothache , e’htiniyu 
yi heart disease, tashki- rupa diarrhoea. Yuri visible sickness is of the 
same sex. 

Abstract nouns are all considered as of the female sex, for they are 
feminine adjectives made into substantives : kaxshi true and truth , 
reality ; rixki’htch force, strength, from rixki strong; taxkiritchi filth , 
from taxkir dirty; naka war, battle is masculine and appears to be 
considered as a concrete, not as an abstract noun. 

The names for the parts of the human and animal body and of 
plants are about equally divided between the two sexes. 

Of masculine nouns we have : ini my tooth, £ruk my neck, i’hs- 
tuksuk my eye, iri’hshi my nose, inishi my breast, £’htuka my shoulder , 
i’hkeni my hand, i. lAbu my right hand, lit. “ good hand,” eyuma'ra 
my wrist, hanimu fist, uyu n bowels, ilakashi my hair, t&xki bone, ishki 
my posteriors, £’hshka my foot, and 6’hshka stalk and root of plant, 
yuxtar feather, plumage, 6xsa tail of animal, axkatini pimple. 

Of feminine nouns there are : i’hkin tirwash my finger-nail, e’htiniyu 
my heart, &hsini my head, itaxkishi my skin (and bark of plants), 


;o 


Albert S. Gatschet, 


[1889. 


bli’hka and blika’htch my liver, ta-idsha flesh, meat\ byu and byu’htch 
my arm, bpushka lung, tchara toe, tu^su grain, seed, ru nut. 

Natural objects classed into the masculine order of inanimates are 
as follows : bshku rain, eshku rahini thunder, t6a snow, hbxka hole, 
ayi, a-i fire, huri wind, ta huri ku the wind blows, aparu sky and clear 
sky ; hi’hshuka dew appears to be of both sexes. 

Manufactured objects are thought to belong to both sexes, but the 
number of those belonging to the feminine possibly prevails over 
that of the opposite sex. 

Masculines are : hassa 11 saw, pblu’hki bottle, taka^ti key, tira taruhi 
clothes-brush, tanaha" back (of chair), kun kurini drum, lit. “ noise 
to assemble,” tchuhi cushion, pillow, ayi wotchura chimney, hbyutana 
bed, ta pb^ku bed-cover, k6ti lodgement, wu^ku hat, ri awahan doorway . 

Feminines are: wishkatahi bow, lit. “bow with cord”; rbhina 
book,paper, ?iewspaper, etc., from rbwa white; ira cloth, clothmg, 
garment, ushik spoon, skala^k shilling, from Span, escalino; laxspi 
ta byu beads, hi’hturak tara n spider-web, yunka and yunka’htch rope, 
ri house, lodge, ri kahi floor, ri pbkuni roof, thatch. 

Readers perusing this long list of nouns will obviously notice that 
some of these terms have lost such endings as -i or -u, and that others 
have a long and an abbreviated form used simultaneously. There 
are whole categories of nouns which distinctly belong to one gram- 
matic sex only, like the names for the points of the compass, all of 
which are feminine exclusively, and moreover end in -sh throughout. 
But outside of the terminals of sex, -ku and -ktchi, with their phono¬ 
logic alterations, no suffix can be found which gives an indication of 
sex by itself, as we observe it, e.g. with Latin -tas and German -heit. 


The problem now confronts us : do we have in the Tonika language 
a division of nouns into an animate or vitalistic and an inanimate or 
non-vitalistic class, or a real sex-division into male and female nouns ? 
To this I reply : 

Had the originators of the gender-system embodied in Tonika 
started from the purpose of separating the objects showing life from 
those of the inanimate world, they would not have placed animals, 
plants, minerals, many objects of nature and the body’s organs into 
the same class. Neither would they have done this, if they desired to 
distinguish the noble from the ignoble (whatsoever this distinction 
may amount to in an Indian’s mind), the active from the non-active, 
or the organic from the inorganic, a conception which could hardly 



Vol. xx.] Sex-denoting Nouns in American Languages. 171 

originate in minds untrained in natural science. That the feminine 
sex contains, or originally embraced, only such terms which describe 
objects hidden within others, or not on the surface, or enclosing 
other objects, and abstract ideas, is a theory agreeing with many 
terms of the list, but not with all the facts on hand, and has therefore 
to be discarded. 

The best we can do in our present state of knowledge is to assume 
that the early Tonikas started from the two sexes observed among 
men and animals, and found in all the other objects of nature, and in 
abstract ideas, some fancied analogy to males and females, and thus 
classified their nouns. 





















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